Soul Eater: Cold War
by Break Hakkai Stein
Summary: When madness stirs the world again after several years of peace, Stein risks his sanity in order to fight against the ressurected Kishin. He soon finds himself fighting for his very soul. It will be up to him and Marie to save both the world and himself.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

It was a perfect night for beginnings. Low in the sky, a laughing moon was frozen in anticipation, holding its breath for the next wave of insanity to enter the world. A kishin was coming. A kishin would be reborn again.

Deep in the dark, concrete laboratory of Franken Stein, an insomniac wandered, thoughts racing through his mind as he paced the gray tile floors of the hallway. Thoughts of the future sped through his mind at a furious pace, leaving his senses in a blur of blinking visions. Madness pulsed in the darker half of his being, waiting for him to make the slightest error in his mindset. Madness and genius were two sides of the same coin. He didn't have much time.

"We're not ready for the race," he said to himself, his voice cracking with a hint of nervous energy. All of this sleeplessness was a sign. It had to be. He could feel his carnal instincts waiting, and whenever those were eager, it meant that danger would find him soon. He had a gift for sensing darkness. He just had to keep it a gift and not a curse.

"We're running out of time!" he shouted, rushing to his workspace and opening the scientific metal drawers of desk. He dug through files furiously, looking for something he knew he shouldn't search for, something he never should have kept. Forbidden science. A project that would doom him to the devil.  
He sighed as he pulled the gray folder out, dusting its cover with his lab coat's sleeve. Psyche. That was the name of the project. He remembered the glee he'd felt as a recent graduate working on his doctorate, the sinister smile that had spread over his features as he'd outlined the procedure. It had been all too perfect, too orderly and obvious. The materials before him, the circumstances of their findings, all had pointed him towards the realm of hidden knowledge, of secrets covered up in simple view. Like so many corpses.

He shook his head. He could not afford to be devoured by his old desires. He had promised Marie that he would never go there again, that he would allow himself to breathe again. He couldn't lose it yet. Not with so much at stake.

Cranking the screw's head jutting from just above his left ear, the scientist known as Dr. Stein headed for the basement, the floor that not even Marie knew of. He hadn't allowed himself to remember its dank storage rooms until now, so many years after he'd abandoned his younger, more sadistic days. Contrary to his students' suspicions, Stein was not the most frightening of men. That diploma would have to go to his college-aged self, the one before the glasses and the mask of foolishness. The colder one.

He descended the stairs hidden behind his medical cabinets. The heavy furniture was difficult to move without the use of a complicated lever hidden beneath the glass cabinets, an insurance against mental lapses of his own. He couldn't afford rushing down there in a fit of madness. Not to this place.  
The room seemed to sigh as he entered it, air from the upper world flowing into its concrete lungs with enthusiasm. If only he felt the same. He was already wishing he hadn't come down here. He could already feel the tethers of his past tightening.

But this was for the better. This was for the future of the human race, not for his own comfort or security. He had to do this. He went to the dusty tables in the nearest corner. Everything was waiting for him. Thread, needles, a defibrillator, they were all there. All he needed was a Rosetta Stone, an answer to every question posed. And he still had one in his hand.

He grinned as the rapture took him and flung open the gray folder on the table's top. Still organized after so many years. He smiled, dancing on the edge of his coin again, the point between madness and creativity. He rushed to his experiment giddily, crying out in his ecstasy despite any kind of judgment his saner self would've had.

"It's good to be back again!"

And for the rest of the night, Stein busied himself with stitching. It was a busy night for the sleepless. A busy night for a kishin.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

She discovered him the next morning, gray, tired and wearily typing at the usual, worn-down keyboard. His posture dragged him towards the lab floor's tiles, weighed his body downwards to the depths of the earth. His mind was numb, straining to remain still in the torrent of inspirations, to appear "normal" in a last defense against the mania. He hardly noticed when she touched his shoulder lightly and then forcefully. As soon as he heard the proverbial "Stein?" he swiveled his patched-up chair to face her, his voice shaking before he fully donned the mask of cold neutrality.

"Yes?"

It was showing in his eyes again, the slight fear that she had not seen since the dark days steeped in the insanity, but he ignored her eye's silent, sympathetic plea, the tilt of her head that said, "Please. Just tell me anything."

No. He was not going to share with her today, not now, when he was distancing himself from everything, from his work beneath the ground. He was Dr. Stein the scientist, not Franken, the boy struggling with deepening desires. Last night had simply been an error; an error in judgment, a necessary sacrifice.

"Are you doing okay?"

He sighed. "I'm fine, Marie. I just had a late night last night. New ideas for an experiment came into my head. They couldn't wait until morning."  
A smile spread over her honest mouth, brightening her gentle features. She had no talent for the perception of duplicity and had always been honest to a fault. It had been one of the first traits that he had truly come to love about her, and now it aided him in his deception all the more. To his horror, the madness inside of him sneered at her naivety.

"What kind of experiment?" she asked eagerly, rocking in her boots. Her arms stretched out childishly, reaching for the ceiling and dropping to her sides. He chuckled.

"Nothing groundbreaking," he said, his mood lifting a little. It was so nice how she could make him feel lighter again, even when he was caught in the midst of preparations, preparations that would change everything. Preparations that could change the very nature of himself.

No. He would wait until later. There was no time to think about THAT. Right now, he had to play his part, go to school, fool his students and trick his dearest Marie. There was no other choice. If she knew what was going on underneath the lab, she would be destroyed in an instant. It would destroy every bit of hope inside of her, and he did not want to do that, not even in the throes of his dissection urges. He would never harm her. Not after she'd rescued him all those years ago.

Instead, he would suffer on his own, wait silently for the moment when everything would be simple, when everything would be revealed, when everything would be solved at last. He would keep his secret from everyone, even Marie, and hope to God that his efforts would be successful. They were running out of time, now more than ever, and he couldn't afford to be kind.

The project had to be completed. The experiment had to be carried out. Only then would his aggravation be worth anything. And as he headed out the door for the Academy to the sound of Marie's protests, he couldn't help but wonder if by then, it would be too late for everything that was left in his already-breaking soul.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

He couldn't remember when he'd stopped caring. Sometimes, mostly when he was grading papers in the middle of class, he would wonder why he was even here. Smile. Teach. Discipline. It always followed the same routine. Black Star would start a fight, Tsubaki would reprimand him, and Stein would send him out into the hallway, the blue-haired meister's two-star status be hanged. Saving the world gave no privileges in Professor Stein's class, something he had to remind Maka Albarn of every so often. Since she'd defeated the Kishin, the girl had gotten a little too confident for what was soon to come. He couldn't afford for his newly-christened Spartoi to become soft, not with his madness senses quivering again. Indeed, a second wave of insanity was on its way, as surely as he would be in his basement laboratory again that night. He wished he could be there at that very moment.

"Professor Stein?"

He glanced up to find Maka Albarn staring at him, her forehead and shoulders scrunched with worry. He froze in mid-step, realizing he had been pacing for the past half-an-hour and couldn't help but wonder where the rest of his class was. Lunch. Right. The lunch bell had rang earlier. Maka had been the only one willing to stay behind, concerned about her teacher. Of course, she could also be trying to get a few points with him, something he was much more willing to believe. Nobody worried about him, least of all someone who had helped to purify him. His inner demon sneered at the thought. No. They believed he was safely caged.

"What is it, Maka?" he sighed, affecting the bored teacher tone that said, "Just get on with it. I have more important things to do."

She stepped back, confusion and hurt spreading across her young features. He softened his gaze a little, not wanting to injure a trembling young soul too much and put a hand on her shoulder, smiling pleasantly down on her. An incident now would only make ignoring the DWMA much harder. He had to keep the illusion of warmth, and if that meant soothing a student's worry, he would have to do his very best.

"I've been thinking of a new technique to teach everyone," he lied, donning his absent-minded smile. Her eyes lit up immediately as expected, her mouth opening in wonder. He'd been right to use that falsehood on her. It played into her expectations perfectly.

"So that's what you were thinking about. Soul thought you were going crazy again. I told him he was wrong to say that about you."

He smirked, a little bit of venom and madness seeping into his voice. "Tattling can hardly improve your Soul Resonance, Ms. Albarn."

She started and then blushed, her hands clasping and her body swaying back and forth in girlish embarrassment. He recognized this gesture. It was sone of Marie's, one that he remembered quite clearly. It was the one she'd worn when she'd asked him out on a date all those years ago. So it was finally happening. Maka had feelings for Soul. This would make things even easier for Stein.

"It's okay, Maka. I'm not going to discipline either of you. Just remember to keep your observations to yourself. You could accidentally hurt someone with them."

_And get me exposed to the DWMA,_ said a darker part of him, but he bid it be silent for now. He must not show fear. That would ruin everything. His experiment would not survive an investigation by Death. He could not afford suspicion from anyone at this time. Right now, that meant gathering his papers and drifting towards the door, signaling Maka to do so as well. He didn't bother collecting his rolling office chair, as that would just delay their departure further. He wanted to get to the laboratory as soon as possible.

Maka followed him all the way out of the Academy, chattering excitedly about her improving resonance rate with Soul. Stein listened halfheartedly, absorbing enough of her conversation to reply properly to her exclamations and glancing back at her enough to nod at all the right times. When she departed him at the corner of her street, he waved happily and continued on, his mind already racing to his project. Tonight would be the initial setup, something he'd been ready to speed through last night after he'd finished his planning. Tonight would mean rummaging through storage cabinets filled with enough medical supplies to open a hospital with. Of course, caring for the sick was not an option for him, not with his penchant for dissection. His patients would be more frightened than relieved to see him, frightened by his creepy aura and the fact that he didn't care for anything but knowledge, knowledge and the power that came with it.

He shrugged the accusing thoughts away. He couldn't exactly help it. The need to acquire power had always been within him, and he doubted he had ever been any different. Even as a young child, he had sat in the back of the class visualizing all the ways the world could be different, how the world could be better, how the world could be faster. Even after the doctors had analyzed him, had examined every orifice in his psychology and memory, he had still hung on to his hunger. The hunger for power. The hunger to dissect.

Finding his thoughts darkening and his front doorway approaching, Stein quickly changed the subject within himself. A sound soul resides within a sound mind and if that meant thinking happy thoughts, he would deal with it, at least until his project was completed. There would be time for him to fall back into madness in the future, when everything was finished, when his own role was over and dear Marie was gone. He hated seeing his partner cry more than anything, and he was not about to make her weep again, not after she had risked so much to reclaim him years ago.

The darker part of him laughed at his naivety. So much for not caring. His care for her was the only human emotion he'd ever had. He was not about to let that go any time soon.

He had to keep her strong. Everyone had to be strong if there was to be any victory in the future and if that meant hiding his madness, then he would continue to appear sane. He was not doing this out of charity. He was doing this for his own victory.

As he approached the front door of Patchwork Labs, he couldn't help but glance up at the snickering moon. The sneering giant leered down at him, the truth etched into its sneering face. It laughed at his inevitable fate each low chuckle repeating the same thing over and over again.

_You are going to go mad. _

And not even the warm smell of Marie's broccoli wafting from the doorway could erase the scientist's sense of impending doom. Victory? Victory never came without a price.


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

"Stein?"

His gaze darted up from his plate, which he must have been picking at, to meet Marie's concerned eye. She had finished her dinner long ago, her plate absent from the table. She must have gotten up earlier to put it away. He really was being careless. It had to be the moon. He couldn't get its prophecy out of his mind.

It took a few seconds for him to pull himself together. "Yes? What is it Marie?"

"Are you really going to be okay?"

He paused for a moment, and for a second, he was totally lost. Fortunately, he knew how to tell a joke, and by the time he was able to pull himself together, Marie had been in tears of merriment for at least fifteen seconds. He smiled. After all they had been through together, he was glad to see that he could still make her happy. It was too miserable being with him, so he had to make some effort to compensate her for her time with him. After all, even if Marie insisted on staying here, he knew that his lifestyle had to worry her at least a little. Even after her healing wavelength had cleansed him from his temporary madness, he still harbored a few odd habits, including the tendency to forget daily needs, and he knew that she could not stand to leave him like that, not if she still feared a return to insanity. He never doubted that she didn't.

Pulling himself back into reality again, he found that Marie was no longer laughing, her face stony in a warning against dishonesty. He had to be careful now. She was getting suspicious, and only an immediate answer would prevent an exercise of Marie's infamous rage.

"I've just been thinking a lot lately," he volunteered, saving himself the trouble of her asking anything. He had to keep the conversation in his court, lest the questioning get out of hand.

"About what?" she asked, curiosity opening her features a little. Just a little.

He shrugged, crossing his arms behind his head nonchalantly and leaning back in his chair. "About you. About me. About everything."

"And about the past?"

He didn't lie. "Some of that. A little bit about the future as well."

"I see," she said, stirring her tea thoughtfully. "What about the future? Is it about us?"

He could sense the hope in that question, but decided not to encourage it. They had been there before and it had not ended well. It was best to leave their emotions out of this. Well, her emotions primarily. He wasn't sure if he was capable of feeling what she felt all the time.

"I'm not sure. All I know is that I think there are going to be changes."

"Like what?"

Yet again, another grandiose shrug. "I really don't know. It's just one of those feelings where you know that something big is going to happen. A sort of breakthrough you could say."

She smiled, her good heart unable to stay suspicious for very long. She probably thought he was working on a new dissertation, something that would cause him to be so preoccupied. "I see. Well, let's hope for the best then, shall we? Cheers."

He smiled, imagining she was truly wishing him luck on his secret project, and clinked his beaker full of water on her tiny porcelain teacup. The delicate container shattered against it, tea gushing from its innards like waste products from a popped kidney. Like sobs from Marie's heart would if he let her get too close. Beneath the table, Stein clenched his right fist, willing his mind still again. He had to stay on top of things. He needed to get a washcloth.

"Sorry about that," he chuckled sheepishly, gathering the shards of the teacup in the rag he had swiped from the newly-installed kitchen's countertop. Marie shook her head, more amused than angry.

"It's okay. Here. Let me put the tablecloth in the laundry."

"We have a laundry machine?"

"Since before I moved here."

"Huh. And here I was using the Death City Laundromat. I guess you must have helped me move in more than I expected."

She giggled, grabbing his hand playfully in her own free one. "Silly Stein. I've always been helping you."

He smirked. "Ever since you first arrived at the Academy."

And for the rest of Marie's time awake that night, Stein let her guide him through the labyrinth of laboratories, nearly laughing when she nearly got them lost in search of the laundry machine. And when the two had finally managed to locate the washer, the two busied themselves with happy, harmless chatter. For a few hours, Stein was almost able to forget his destiny. For a few hours, he was able to forget himself. And for a few hours, he was able to forget the night.


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

Night. The time when he could truly be awake. Night. The time he was allowed to be himself. Night. The time he could allow his true nature free reign. Night. The time of true ecstasy. He didn't even try to suppress his excited giggles.

Marie had long since gone to bed, and Stein was finally free to do as he chose to. Sneaking out from under the covers was hardly difficult when your partner was such a heavy sleeper. Stein was home free and he was going to make the most of his freedom. He had from now until sunrise.

_Let's go!_

His fingers were fast from years of practice. His eyes were sharp from years of textbooks. His heart was primed with inborn passion. He only needed freedom.

Stein only had a few days to get this right. If he moved too slowly, his project would quickly wear out, susceptible as it was to the flow of time. Even Death was not beyond time. Stein found that an interesting philosophy because it only made his heart beat faster, made him more productive. At this rate he would be finished with Stage Three by Friday. That only left Stage Four.

It was almost frightening how fast he could work when manic. He could get things done at nearly three times his "normal" speed when he was this way, far faster than any of his classmates ever could. School had wasted so much time for him. Being forced to stay seated while the others finished their tests had been torture. And they'd said _he _had an inclination towards cruelty.

"_I would almost puke just from the sight of everyone…"_

He shook his head. Now was not the time for reminiscing, not with such an important endeavor ahead of him. Resentment would have to come later, after he had succumbed to the insanity. And yes, that was to be his fate. Stein had resigned to that long ago, ever since the verdict had come in from the experts, as soon as the diagnosis had been made by the establishment. The Order. The Established Order. They were the ones who had declared him disturbed.

"Right and wrong are determined by the people who hold positions of authority." Stein could recall telling one of his students that. He would have to remind himself of that philosophy if he was to make it through to the end of this mad venture. Nihilism was the only way for Stein's soul to escape condemnation.

_The world is one big moral grey area and the best thing to do is to keep going._

And so he was able to continue through the night of the laughing moon, his frenzy now quieted by his solemn meditations. It was hard to be happy when one feared for one's soul. He could only keep going, comforting himself with the fact that one day all his suffering would be ended.

_"Anyone who strays from the right path must be stopped."_

Stein could only hope that Lord Death would find the heart to destroy him.


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

His fingers itched. His heart pounded. His mind rushed. Every twitch of his fingers, every pulse in his temples urged him onwards onwards onwards onwards… It was nearly done. It was nearly finished.

He had known Marie would be gone on a Death Scythe mission when he completed _it. _He knew she'd be furious when she returned, perhaps frightened, perhaps worried for him. Worried for him. He would have to push that thought away.

And so he collected himself again, attending to his delicate work with practiced fingers. Medical school had taught him to contain himself in these situations, at least for long enough to complete his handiwork. Madness was useless if it led to incompletion, and he had ruined enough projects in his uncontrolled mindset. So he made himself cold, empty and indifferent to the task ahead of him. It was research. It was science. It was progress. This was living.

Stein's sanity left again; rivers of data crowding out rationality pouring like a fast-acting stimulant flooding through the bloodstream. There was a reason he smoked cigarettes, with their ability to kindle the senses. Cigarettes were a way to keep a lingering taste of this madness on his tongue, to tide him over until he could carry on later, out of sight of Marie and Spirit.

_Marie and Spirit…_

His hands trembled and he nearly lost his needle, taking a moment to straighten himself. He had to leave them out this. This was not about them; this was not about his relationships. This was about a battle, a battle that he had to win else humanity be swept away again. He had to be practical, not distracted by petty doubts and insecurities. He needed to be a surgeon.

Damn it! The stitches were all wrong! They were hastily done, incapable of holding anything together for very long, and that would entitle him to a faulty product, something he could not afford to fix later. He would have to begin again. He would have to tear into it, rip every suture out of its structure, relishing the moment when he destroyed everything inside-

_No!_

Stein tore himself away from the table, propping himself against the wall even as he felt his body shift back towards his project_. _He was not going to give into this, not now when so much was at stake. A deadline was approaching, and at this rate, he wasn't going to finish anything. He had a job to do, and if his urges kept him from finishing it, he would lose more than a few gallons of disinfectant. He would lose the war.

_You hate losing just as much as I do. _

He sighed. He shouldn't be surprised that he was hearing this again. His mind was fond of playing tricks on him, pulling back faces that he didn't want to remember, and _her_ voice was no exception. As much as Marie tried her best to be his everything, deep down, Stein knew that Medusa would always be a part of him regardless of his partner's love.

"_I love you, you know. A man after my own heart."_ The witch's words would always whisper condemnation from the shadows, even after Marie had brought light into his darkness. Stein would always be afraid of Medusa, for she had known him like no one ever had, and until someone else understood his "otherness", he could never truly forget that-

"_At your core…you're just like me."_

He brought a hand up to remove his glasses, wiping his sweating forehead with the back of his palm. Back at that first battle, he had said a lot of things, almost as if he'd been waiting to give a desperate confessional, and he had felt Spirit's unease at his connection with her through their resonance link. She had been his committed confidant, smiling knowingly when he'd said that neither of them could feel love and proceeding to easily knot him into her web as easily as Arachnophobia had ensnared the Academy.

He twitched and crossed the remaining feet to the table, gazing upon what would soon be the completion of his magnum opus, the masterwork of his creative mind. Throwing himself into his work with a new vigor he tossed his thoughts to the darkness, immersing himself in passion and procedure. This was living. This was feeling. This was breathing. This was hopeless.

_**And so what? **_He was never going to have fun like this again, so he might as well enjoy every minute of it. After this, he would be off to a cell, strapped neatly to a stretcher as a present for the great Kishin hunter, the _**infallible **_Lord Death. He would be nothing more than an artifact, a symbol of the consequences for going beyond humanity. Humanity. What had it ever been but a cage to him, a way of keeping him from being what he truly was?

Stein's hand flew to his shirt to clench his chest tightly. He wheezed as his fingers clawed at the monstrous swelling within him, a strange creature that hadn't had free reign in a long while. Not since college. Not since Medusa. Not since Ashura. An agitated grin spread itself on his face. It was nearly time.

He shook his head and resumed his feverish pace. He never should have worked this late; the world was spinning too fast and he was finding it difficult to concentrate, but he had no other choice. Conditions were perfect with Marie gone and if he timed this right, it would only be about a day before they found him and his creation. His experiment would have a chance to be found unbroken, provided that he didn't damage it in his insanity. He sighed. It was getting more difficult to predict what he might do. It was time to bring everything to an end.

He ascended to his living quarters for the last time, pushing his cabinets to the sides of his secret lab's entrance so that Marie could find it. The sitting room gaped before him, empty, gray and cold even with the accumulation of Marie's knick-knacks and couches. His office chair stood motionless by his desk, nestled beneath one of Marie's black jackets and too tired for one more ride over a doorframe. And on the top of his desk sat Marie, well, at least the picture of herself she had left on his desk. Yesterday, she'd been sure to stick a huge yellow Post-It note that read "Be good!" to its surface, much to Stein's bewilderment. She was only going to be gone for a day. What difference would twenty-four hours make?

He didn't want to answer that question. Instead, he brought the picture downstairs with him, tucking the yellow Post-It note inside his lab coat pocket so that it wouldn't fall and drift to the floor. He didn't know why he's saved it. Then he realized it could double as a list, if he only wrote on the back of it with the pen

He was already forgetting her face.

He bolted the doors of his basement laboratory. He slid his keys under the doorway so that he would have no chance of escape, no chance to wreak havoc on his coworkers and students. He slipped the Post-It note under the doorway, Marie's love note now inscribed with directions on its backside so that she would know what to do when she came home.

"Don't come in alone. Bring back up. Folder: _Psyche."_

His preparations completed and his person safely locked in, Stein looked at Marie's picture, looked at his project, and then glanced at her picture again. For a moment, there was hesitation. Removing her photo from the frame, he looked at it one more time, noting Marie's kind and innocent expression. Too kind and innocent for him. Resignedly, he folded the picture and put it in his pocket, forgetting it along with his students, coworkers, and friends.

But these past years had been part of an experiment, the result of an optimistic hypothesis that was already being disproven. All of this had been a trial, a test situation that was not destined to last longer than the procedure demanded, and it was time to move on. He had to let go if he was to win this cold war, this war of information and development already beginning in the kishin's mind. As old thoughts evaporated and new ones replaced them, Stein took a deep breath, let it out, and closed his eyes. He desired only one thing… What was that?

_What I desire… What I want more than anything…_

He counted his heartbeats. He counted his breaths. He opened his eyes.

And then he smiled.

Before he completely lost himself, he thought he heard a small voice, a far off memory from a night almost twenty years ago.

"_How long are you going to keep doing this?"_

But as he grinned and let his instincts take him, filling him to the brim with hunger for knowledge and a lust for power, Stein found he finally had an answer the question that had so tormented him when he was younger.

_**I WANT TO DO THIS FOREVER!**_

The switch was thrown. The deed was done. Stein was lost.

And something twitched.


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

He lies on the laboratory's tile floor in silence, convulsing with every silent scream of laughter that tears from his chest. He is drowning again, a fish thrown up onto a rocky shore by a sudden seaside storm. He can do no more than gasp and struggle against the stifling, unavoidable air. Unexplainable glee seizes him and he giggles into oblivion, his teeth no longer able to hold their frozen grin. The dam breaks and the madness rushes forward, pouring out of him in high, screeching laughter.

_Oh, Marie! If only you were here to see this!_

It's beautiful, the insanity that surrounds him. A stone-lined path stretches outwards, shrines to ancient gods enclosing the way to Understanding. The idols' ageless eyes stare into his soul, bidding him forwards, upwards, and onwards into the future. There is no time left.

The sound of skittering comes from behind and he turns to find millions upon millions of psychedelic spiders racing towards him, a wave of legs and eyeballs scratching at the ground before them. He jolts out of his reverie and flees towards his destiny. There are too many spiders, and if he stands his ground, they will bury him in his doubts, his deeds, his desires. So he presses onwards, trying to escape from the inescapable.

On the laboratory floor, his body writhes in pain and his lips cry out, but he is beyond awareness of anything he says and does. He is too busy clambering up the hillside of his hopes, too lost inside the maze that is his mind. He cannot even hear when Marie bursts in, Spirit and Sid in tow, and rushes to his side. She calls his name, a lifeguard throwing a buoy to a drowning child, but he is unable to grasp the life ring, for he is already under the sea of faces, the sea of madness that waits to claim him, remake him in its image and for its purposes. He thrashes towards the surface, kicking at the water beneath him in a desperate hope to save his soul.

And breaks the surface. He is at the end of the path now, as if he were never drenched in the first place, standing in the solemn silence of the shrine that stands before him. Atop the stonework sits a god much larger than the others. This one looks down in judgement, coldly evaluating everything inside of him with its eyes sewn into its blindfold, a Lady Justice peeking from the outside. And then she smiles.

He knows that smile more than anyone's and knows its cruel, viperous intent the way he knows his own psychotic grin.

"Medusa…" He is unable to move from his place of shameful fear, wishing against everythingthat he's mistaken, imagining, even hallucinating. Anything but this. Anything but this again.

"So you recognize me," she says, leaping off her pedestal with long, powerful legs. He shifts back a little, regarding her with a wary half-lidded gaze. She is different now, her snake tattoos rejected in favor of real eyeballs peering from her arms. Gone is the snake-inspired hoodie, replaced by loose bands of fabric hanging from her shoulders. She glides forward surreptitiously, her legs dividing to form six new appendages. A spider. He shudders but manages to defend himself with words of educated disgust.

"So you've absorbed Ashura. And Arachne for that matter. I never thought evil destroyed by Maka's wavelength would survive the purification process."

She sighs, the teacher of a frustrating novice, and tilts her head in mocking surprise. "So good to see you again, Stein. Did you miss me?"

He smirks, his cocky grin his only defense against a newly-resurrected kishin. He knows that she can destroy him right here and erase every bit of the mind he calls his own, but he stands strong, hoping that with a last resistance, he may find hope for his soul. If not here then maybe in the next life, wherever that may be. It's so hard to believe in heaven right now.

"To be honest, Medusa, not much," he manages, taking a bit of arrogance from the terror within him. He has to be a little crazy to even attempt arguing with her. He needs the adrenaline more than anything. "You're as serpentine as ever, alerting me with a madness wavelength only to have me come right to you. You haven't changed a bit."

Her gaze drops and she loses her smile, a reaction he remembers from their underground fight. She never could stand an insult to her cunning, and being called predictable isn't something she'll leave unchallenged. They are so very much alike, the snake witch and he, and that can only be to his advantage. If he's lucky, he might get out with his life. But that has never been essential to his plan. The true hope lies in _Psyche, _the project he left to Marie and the Academy and he has to believe in them. He has to believe in his friends.

She chuckles, recovering her haughtiness in a second and starts forward, her eight legs clicking below her. The scientist watches their pattern, already vivisecting them with his eyes. Click clack left right back front. He finds himself smiling.

"Oh, you like that, don't you?" she laughs, pitying him, "You're so easy to read, Stein. I never did have a hard time leading you."

His fists clench, but he is at it again, counting the ligaments on her legs and cataloguing them. Three six nine twelve fifteen eighteen- Perceiving his thought processes, she withdraws her extra legs, wagging a finger playfully at him as the school nurse persona falls into place. He is her patient now, a boy caught playing outside with a broken arm against doctors' orders. A boy caught taking things apart. An angry grin slides firmly into place on Stein's face, memories seeping into his subconscious.

"Now, now, Stein. Can't have you losing your manners."

The grin spreads wider and Stein steps forward, a deep noise in his throat.

"I'm going to dissect you…"

And he lurches forward without thinking, only to be caught in her coils again. She takes him by the shoulders as she sidesteps him, pulling him into a dance expertly. Guiding snakes wrap around his legs, directing his movements as deftly as a puppet's strings. The madness fades and he trembles, remembering too much about what happened between them, the night of their dance and the night of his wanderings. So many things that he'd rather not remember.

She leans forward and he struggles a little, unable to move under binding serpents. So many serpents with so many eyeballs. His own eyes count their pupils.

"Look at me, Stein."

He shakes his head emphatically and keeps counting eyeballs, retreating into insanity as fast as his mind can carry him, drifting into a sea of harmless data, harmless questions, kind delusions. He doesn't want to hear this, doesn't want to hear Marie's own soft words twisted in this mockery of partnership, doesn't want to feel Medusa's body against his fingers, doesn't want to taste Medusa's lips inside his mouth. Not when he had his Marie. Not when she had been in his heart.

"Stein…"

But it's not Marie calling his name this time. It's Medusa. _Medusa!_ The witch one, the wicked one, the wrong one. Thewrongone the wrongone the wrongone. The wrong one is calling him from his sanity. And why does it feel so right?

He turns to look at her slowly, the snakes slackening on his neck a little for him to do so. He could dodge her if he wants to. He could fight against the insanity inside him. He could defy reality and try to find his way back to the Academy. Again and again and again. But as he gazes into her three kishin eyes, his own eyes widening and beginning to glisten with wild curiosity, he realizes that it is useless to defy the kishin's insanity. It is useless to fight against the undertow.

"Insanity…" says Stein, wearily, and she pauses halfway to his mouth, waiting for him to finish. She smiles expectantly, waiting for him to say something confirming her victory. He steels himself for the inevitable, deciding to make one last struggle before he loses it, before he becomes a part of her grand experiment. Before he becomes her monster.

"…is inborn…" She smiles at him, falling for his poorly laid trap. He does not have the energy to think much faster than this, but it will have to do for now. After this, it will be up to the others and his project. "…but it cannot defy destiny. It cannot escape Death."

Catching his double entendre, Medusa has a moment of wariness, but ultimately understands his threat, laughing loudly until her body begins to shake the two of them. When she recovers, four legs bring Stein inches from her forehead. For a moment he is in rapture, but then he struggles against her endless eyes, squeezing his eyelids shut like an airlock desperately trying to defy a black hole's pressure. It's time to break him. She grins at last, a viper victorious and lets her new-found wavelength guide him, gently of course, because she likes to see him free for just a little while, if only to crush him later. He bites down on his lower lip and begins to tremble, trying to keep the laughter in his larynx even as he finds his left eye opening slightly.

"My dear doctor," she begins slowly as he begins to wheeze a little. The laughter is getting harder to hold in now, and the fear within him is starting to wrap around his innards. Realizing this is too slow for her taste, Medusa delivers the clincher, using his insecurity against him. "How do you know _Project: Psyche _wasn't me?"

His mouth and eyes fall open in horror and she is in, tearing into his mind with her kishin gaze and shaving the humanity from his being. The last thing sane Stein hears is the sound of raving laughter and a single lovely voice.

But that is lost quickly in the sound of the waves.


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

"Stein? Stein can you hear me?"

A strangled laugh came from the other side of the door.

"Stein, please answer me. What's wrong? Are you alright?"

A wheezing giggle.

"He's lost it," said Spirit, pressing past Marie and knocking on the door sharply. The echoes of his knuckles reverberated throughout the underground hallway, causing Stein to make a sharp pained moan.

"Stein, it's Spirit. We're coming in."

Stepping back, Spirit motioned to the door. "Break it down, Marie." All she could do was nod. She had never seen him so stern before, not even when he had discouraged her from going after Stein all those years ago.

"Stein, we're coming in. We're here to help you, so don't be afraid." Marie shifted her weight and brought her arm back behind her head. In a flash of yellow light, her hand transformed, thickening and lengthening into a broad stone mallet twice the size of the bottom half of her arm.

Behind her, Sid and Spirit braced themselves.

The hammer shattered the door with a deafening crash, blowing it off of its hinges and sending it flying into the laboratory. Marie rushed in, her hand transforming back into its normal state.

"Stein?"

Fingers of light filtered into the pitch black room, leaving deep nighttime shadows in its corners. Marie squinted. On the far side of the room, the edges of an operating table caught the light from the hallway outside. A white sheet covered its contents.

A small muffled snicker reverberated off the walls. Marie shivered despite her determination. She ran her hand against the wall, fingering for a light switch.

"Stein? Are you here?"

A white blur lunged from the darkness, slashing at her throat and snarling with an animal rage she had never heard from Stein before. Sid and Spirit leaped into the room, tackling the cackling figure before he could pin her to the wall. Sid's voice cried out over the scuffle.

"Find the lights!"

Turning her attention back towards the door, Marie searched for the light switch, her heart pounding at the sounds of struggle. Dust covered her hands as she scrambled for the switch. Eventually she found it a little further along the wall. She flicked the lights on and turned.

Stein was pinned to the ground, his body thrashing wildly underneath Spirit and Sid's weight as they tried to bring him under control. The scalpel trembled in his flailing hands, coming dangerously close to the back of Sid's neck. Marie rushed forwards, kneeling down and prying it from Stein's hand. She placed a hand on his head, attempting to send her wavelength into her partner's mind. Stein screamed. Her wavelength quickly recoiled.

"Get the sedative," grunted Sid, "It's in my back pocket."

"But Sid-" If they just gave her a little more time, if they could just let her figure out what was bothering him, then maybe she could-

"Now!" grunted Spirit, Stein's left arm threatening to overpower him.

Marie flinched, but then nodded and slid the sedative from Sid's back pocket. She quickly removed the plastic cap and primed the needle, a small stream squirting from its end.

"I'm sorry, Stein. This is going to hurt a little," she said, holding the needle to his neck.

Stein made an unearthly screech.

"I'm sorry," she said again, choking on the tears building in her throat.

The needle went in. Stein's eyes rolled back in their sockets as his muscles went limp. Sid released the meister and pulled a two-way radio from one of the pockets of his reconnaissance vest. Rising to his feet, he pressed the black talk button.

"Someone get a stretcher in here!"

The Academy medics were some of the fastest first-responders in the world. In less time than it had taken Spirit to rise to his feet, the paramedics waiting outside Patchwork Labs rushed into the room with a stretcher in tow. It took five men to tip the unconscious Stein into a seated position.

"Get him jacketed," said the head paramedic said, standing in the door. "We can't take any chances if he wakes up."

And despite Marie's protests, the Academy's greatest meister, the Academy's most experienced veteran of the war against madness, was shimmied into a straightjacket and carried to the ambulance waiting to take him away.


End file.
